Swan Song

Well, after over 5.5 years with Pivia (Swan Labs for the past 4 months following the acquisition of Pivia in November) I have decided to leave to try something new. My last day at Swan was Friday February 25th. It was a difficult decision for me and I will definitely miss the people at Swan, but for me it was the right time to leave all of that behind and move on to something else.

I haven't looked very hard for jobs yet and I am planning on taking a week or so off before I look around much. I did already receive a good job offer from a pretty exciting company in the mobile phone space that I found through a recruiter which may force that process to speed up a bit. I wasn't really trying to get a job offer that quickly but at the same time it feels good to know that I have a job if I want one. They want me to accept the offer really soon, but I feel like I need to wait a tiny bit (1 to 2 weeks) and talk to a few other places before I settle, just for my own peace of mind. I feel like I owe that to myself at a minimum when choosing the place I'll be spending a large chunk life for possibly quite some time. Hopefully they will understand.

If anyone has an exciting job they think I might be interested in, feel free to send me a message at (obfuscated to avoid spamming) my first initial followed by my last name (no spaces or punctuation between them) at mail dot com.

Mirror Image

I'm currently at Red Robin waiting for lunch (a Banzai burger) and thought I'd post a picture I took in Nordstrom's in downtown Portland this past Christmas while we were out shopping. I know, Christmas has long since passed, but I really just did this to entertain myself while eating lunch and waiting for my burger to arrive. Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to post here soon!

No hybrids in the California car pool lane today

Many car owners have purchased hybrids or were planning on purchasing them, not only for the great fuel efficiency, but to be able to drive solo in the car pool lanes in California. Looks like that may not be happening any time soon.

Here's an excerpt from a Newsday article:

SACRAMENTO -- Hybrid car owners anxious to cruise California's car pool lanes are in for a January disappointment. Their reward for getting 45 miles per gallon is caught up in Washington politics.

Though the California Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed to open the lanes to single-occupant hybrid cars beginning Jan. 1 -- specifically the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic and Insight -- the U.S. government hasn't approved a waiver to allow it on federal highways in the state.

Backers of the law said it might be months before the fuel-efficient cars are allowed in the fast lane in California, if ever.

Tsunami Relief, Please Help

Here's a detailed list from CNN of organizations putting together aid and relief support for the 2004 tsunami tragedy in Asia. Please help in any way that you can!

• Amazon
• AmeriCares
• Action Against Hunger
• ADRA International
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc.
• American Red Cross
• Association for India's Development
• CARE
• Catholic Relief Services
• Christian Children's Fund
• Church World Service
• Concern Worldwide
• Direct Relief International
• Doctors Without Borders
• Food for the Hungry, Inc.
• International Aid
• International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
• International Medical Corps
• International Rescue Committee
• Islamic Relief Worldwide
• Lutheran World Relief
• MAP International
• Mercy Corps
• Network for Good
• Operation Blessing International
• Operation USA
• Oxfam America
• Plan USA
• Project Concern International
• Salvation Army
• Save the Children USA
• UNICEF
• U.N. World Food Programme
• USAID
• World Concern
• World Relief
• World Vision

A former co-worker of mine from San Jose was caught in the tsunami in Bankok. She was hurt but made it back to the U.S. in one piece. Here's a link to her blog where she discusses some of her experiences and thoughts on the situation.

Finally at the airport

We're now at the airport waiting for our plane which is a bit late. Because of that I've had time to post this whole Christmas sequence directly from my phone. I've got to catch my plane so I have to run.

Waiting at Tower Records

I had to wait in a long line for a few CD's and this caught my eye in line.

Getting closer

The bread was a success.

Preparing for Christmas

The start of the cranorana bread.

Messed up

No, this car was not being towed. This is a picture of one of the more impressive rear-end accidents I've ever seen. It was on my way to work on 101 N about 1 mile north of the 237 exit. I was heading south and thought I'd take advantage of my camera phone and snap a picture of this one. Don't worry I didn't slow traffic down with my rubber-camera-phone-necking since it was already moving pretty slowly. I still want to know how that one car got underneath the other one.

Scaphoid Fracture

I hurt my right wrist in a soccer game a little over a week ago and visited a doctor today because the pain hasn't been getting any better. There was only a little bit of initial swelling on the top of my wrist and not much bruising following the injury so I had hoped it was just a mild sprain. Unfortunately it seems less likely to be the case things haven't gotten better and there is acute pain only in the "snuffbox" area on the left side of the right wrist when applying pressure or with certain movements which the doctor felt seemed most likely to point to a scaphoid fracture.

At the doctors today I had 3 x-rays taken which didn't conclusively show a fracture, which is apparently a common occurrence with a scaphoid/navicular wrist fracture. Apparently it can take a few weeks for re-absorption at the area of injury to occur before the fracture will appear in x-rays. Even then a secondary test such as an MRI or bone scan may be needed to detect the problem.

If not treated soon it can lead to bad arthritis, bone necrosis, and more, and can require surgery and bone grafts if it doesn't join back together and heal well. Typical treatment involves a short or long arm cast with thumb also in a cast for 2 to 6 months with a full arm cast for only 5 to 6 weeks of that if used.

I sure hope this isn't the problem but it seems likely at this point. I have another doctors appointment next Thursday when I should hopefully find out more. For those of you interested in the problem, here are some decent websites with more information on Scaphoid fractures:

• Site 1


• Site 2


• Site 3


• Site 4

Ninjas Killed My Family

I ran into this today, supposedly taken of a homeless man on the streets of Seattle. I think that it's pretty innovative, especially since I have a soft spot in my heart for ninjas. That's really all I have to say about that.

Jesus in teeth

For those of you that have been following the Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich story, and everywhere else, this just in from NBC. Apparently a devout Chritian man came into the office of a Phoenix dentist for a routine exam on Tuesday and discovered this image in his dental x-rays. I wonder if he'll pull some teeth and sell them on eBay?

Hank and I

Ahh, the joys of having a camera phone at a wedding and telling your friends that you can post pictures directly to the web!

The table

Wedding driving

Some friends of mine got married today at the Mission Santa Clara. I had a great time, and took a few shots with my camera phone that I sent directly to this page during the wedding. It's still new and exciting for me since I just set everything up for auto-posting a day ago so sorry if you get a bit of picture overload!

Going Che

This isn't the best example, but it took me all of one minute so I thought I'd post it and a link to it. I didn't have a high enough face contrast so I needed to use an intermediate shade of gray rather than the standard two tone Che Guevara photos. Here's a site that gives step by step instructions for creating your own in Photoshop. Maybe I'll make a better one at some point.

The basic gist of it using Photoshop:



1. Find a good photo with good contrast


2. Convert it to grayscale


3. Choose filter -> artistic -> cutout


4. Use "Number of levels: 2", "Edge Simplicity 5", "Edge Fidelity 3"


5. Convert back to color


6. Fill the color regions with your choice of Che red, or add a red layer with blending mode overlay on top, I preferred mine in grayscale

Eye'm photoblogging

I thought I'd give photoblogging a try with my new camera-phone, so keep an eye out for a lot of small posts with images from my daily life. I will most likely stick to non-personally-identifiable pictures in case you were worried that you might appear here, but who knows. I'm all set up to e-mail Flick'r and have them automatically post to this blog with a template I set up, using the subject and body from my e-mail message with the image attached--pretty slick!

Friday dinner

Waiting for Gentoo to re-compile kernel modules? Eat Japanese!!

Hand ball!

Hit during a soccer game, and I wasn't playing keeper!

My Friday night

My Friday night at work. The wife isn't around so I stayed a little later to play with some Gentoo installation options. I can't tell you how much of a fun way this is to spend a Friday night.